


Sister Maggie Grace, Three Days Later

by MissIzzy



Series: Walking Behind With a Bucket [19]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (Spoilers for who survived said season), Ficlet, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 08:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16426037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: Taking in all the new orphans.





	Sister Maggie Grace, Three Days Later

“With the latest group in we’re officially out of beds.”

“Do we have the sleeping bags in?” Sister Maggie asks the younger nun. She sent someone out to get them the day after this possible-Rapture happened. They didn’t need them that day, because far too many of their beds were newly emptied, but there are more children newly orphaned than old orphans dead, and also those whose foster parents have died, so they have to come back.

“All piled up in the basement,” Sister Anna replies. “If too many more come in, we’ll have to spend the entire afternoon unwrapping them, though right now we’re only eight kids over.”

“I don’t think there’ll be that many more,” she says. “The question is more how long will they be here. If it’s for more than a few days, we should have the children take turns sleeping in them.”

Normally it would be. And now, it might be longer. Maggie has no idea how many people will be willing to take these children in now. Though she also wonders if maybe they’ll get approved as foster parents faster. And how many cases there’ll be where that’s not a good thing.

Though at least it would be in the case of her own son and the woman he’s finally started dating again. They want to take in a specific pair of siblings, he’s explained, whose parents had been friends of a friend of Karen’s.

(Before he broke down in her arms over Foggy, and she has to pray for forgiveness, for how ridiculously relieved she is her own child lives. Though Foggy being among those departed is one of the biggest pieces of evidence so far that this has been the Rapture, odd as some of its other choices of who to take would be.)

They’ve started gathering the new arrivals in the church. They’re all seated in the pews by the time she goes out to them. Twenty-six of them, if they’ve now got eight more orphans than beds. Sister Juana has been talking to them, or maybe just been trying to be heard; they’re loud, and she looks almost dead on her feet. Maggie sends her off with a quick gesture and silences the children with two loud claps of her hands.

She begins the speech she’s come up with over the past two days, the one she’s modified, now that she’s giving it to large groups instead of one or two children coming in alone. “Welcome,” she said, “to Clinton Church, and welcome to St. Agnes. You can call me Sister Maggie.”

“Why weren’t you Raptured?” A little girl interrupts her. “Do you think we’re all bad people, because we weren’t either?” From her tone, it’s impossible for Maggie to tell whether she really thinks this was the Rapture or not.

Even when a boy sitting near her, holding a toddler who is obviously his brother, snaps, “This isn’t the Rapture. The Rapture’s supposed to take everyone under a certain age, right?”

“We don’t know why God took so many people three days ago, or why He did not take us.” She’s given this speech to everyone. The orphans they had already, the ones just come in, the other nuns, people coming in from the streets, Matt, Karen, Marci Stahl, everyone. She might have said it to the new priest had he lived. “We do not know God’s plan.”

“Are you telling yourself that?” asks a surly boy sitting in the back. “Bet you got so scared when you realized you weren’t Raptured.”

“Be quiet!” the girl next to him snaps, and a couple of other kids repeat it. Maggie’s glad; it gives her a moment to hold herself together. Because the boy’s right. She’s wondered if it was because of her sins, the many small ones, or, of course, the one great one. There have even been moments when she’s felt all too much like she had after Matt’s birth. But she can’t let that show right now.

“What we do know,” she raises her voice to say, “is that we are here now, and I am here to help you.” It’s her most hopeful thought right now, that God left her behind because He knew she’d be needed. Though no matter what, she’s going to do what she’s spent her life doing until He calls her home.

The children have actually fallen silent again. For the first time, Maggie really looks at how many of them still look dazed or shocked. “I am more sorry than I can say for the losses you have suffered. No child should lose their parents that young, or other members of their family, as I know many of you have lost them as well. But you are not alone. Here at St. Agnes, we hope you can find yourself at home here, until, if you’re lucky, God will provide you with a new one, either temporarily or permanent. While those you have lost can never be replaced, it is always possible to find a new home, a new family.”

It doesn’t look like her words are helping much at the moment. But at least some of her audience should remember them, and believe them later.

“And we’ll start by getting all your names.” She walks up to them, wanting to make eye contact as she heard their names, as well as prepare herself to get them down immediately. She rarely needs to hear any child’s name more than once to remember it, and she’s never had to learn this many names at once, but she’s determined to do it right. “Starting with the little girl on the end, there.”


End file.
